The project concerns the causes and mechanisms of the nutritional depletion and general deterioration of the cancerous host, known as cancer cachexia. The object is to find ways of blocking or reversing the cachectic effects of cancer so that the cancer patient would become more accessible and less vulnerable to anti-cancer therapies. Insulin administered in both early (mild) and late (severe) cachexia increases voluntary food intake and conserves body mass without accelerating growth of tumor, but also without prolonging survival. The insulin treatment was unable to reverse or prevent the astenic component of cachexia. The simple mass of large experimental tumors used to study cachexia distorts the apparent cachectic effects of tumors, leading to overestimate of effects on food intake, depression and tissue depletion, and underestimate of asthenic effects. Depletion of skeletal muscle by tumor is proportional to general carcass depletion, but normal hypertrophic response to work survives.